


You Wish Your Tired Feet Were Fireproof

by KastleInTheSky



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Canon?, F/M, I Blame Tumblr, One Shot, Reunion, Reunited and It Feels So Good, filling in the blanks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-07
Updated: 2016-10-07
Packaged: 2018-08-20 00:15:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8229646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KastleInTheSky/pseuds/KastleInTheSky
Summary: What could Frank Castle possibly want with Karen Page after all this time? Did she really even care?OBVIOUS INSPIRATION





	

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously inspired by you-know-which pics.

There was simply no other way she could phrase it - she was terrified, and Frank Castle had to be completely out of his mind after all.

Karen had never been afraid walking alone in New York, not even after Daredevil, ninjas, Frank himself, Fisk. Nothing scared Karen about the quiet alleys of Hell's Kitchen. It was here, now, in broad daylight approaching the South Street Seaport that she was quite literally shaking in her boots. At first, she thought the messages were a sick prank. From whom, she hadn't considered, but there was no way. No way that after what she spat at Frank Castle that he could possibly want her help for anything ever again. No way that after Frank slammed the door on whatever blossoming camaraderie was between them that she should ever be coming back. She knew that, and yet, here she was.

The notes had given her military coordinates, of all things, to what she could now see was a particular bench along the water, where an unkempt man was hunched over. She began to slow, knowing there was no way this man was Frank Castle, perhaps a homeless man getting his bearings in the early sunlit morning. 

Karen looked over her shoulders, like she was the wanted convict herself. Her cold hands rubbed up the sleeves of her blazer, warming herself, knowing she could indeed become wanted after this.

Then he did it. When she was within yards of the bench, he did it. Over his shoulder and dragging his overgrown beard, he looked at her. And she froze. They both did. For Christ knows how long, they just looked at each other. Jesus, it'd been so long. The thought flashed through Karen's head without much prompting. Frank's eyes were bright, like he wasn't expecting to see her, like this was a big surprise, like she was a present on Christmas morning. Karen remained stoic, however. Karen's gift last Christmas morning was the realization that there were a lot of people in this city, people who she had trusted, people who she thought she could love, that were too self-interested to care about her.

She would be damned if she would allow Frank to become one of them, but, like a great instinct pushing up from her belly, she called to him.

"This..." she began, stuttering at first. "This is reckless, Frank. Even for you."

Frank turned away from her again, appearing to agree. She found the closer she came to Frank, the more the blood inside her was whirling, and the more stray emotions it picked up as it spun. She could hear the door the clearest, the sharp slam, the severing. Karen took her seat on the cold wood beside him.

"Wouldn't have told you to come if it wasn't safe, Karen. You know that."

Frank sure picked the worst instance to mutter Karen's name in her presence for the first time. There was a fear inside her that told her this simplest of gestures was too intimate. Not for someone she once thought cut her out of his life so cruelly, when all she wanted to do help. She wanted to be "ma'am" again, not Karen. She turned her head away from him so he could not see these thoughts manifesting themselves as a heated scowl.

He would have none of that, it seemed. Karen could see his shadow extend towards her and he leaned in. 

"I wouldn't have asked to here if I didn't need you."

"If you didn't need me," Karen chortled, unable to keep the sweltering anguish inside. "You call me when you need me. You need me until you get the guy you're after and then that's it 'til you're on to the next crusade, huh?"

The words hung in the crisp morning air. She was right, and she interpreted the silence as Frank's agreement once again.

"That was... wasn't fair to you, what I did," Frank eventually said, fumbling over the words. For a moment, he sat back in his seat, and Karen could hear him heave a heavy breath, a sigh of "nowhere else to go". She still couldn't bring herself to look at him.

Why were they here?

The answer was hidden in front of her. Karen knew in her gut that as she felt Frank's eyes upon her again, Frank must have been more trusting than she was now. She heard the door slam, the shot fired. Next she saw him on the rooftop, knowing what she said to him, and then knowing she may not have meant it.

"What is it now?" she spat.

Not missing a beat, Frank replied, "I... information," he folded. "You... you ever hear of Anvil?"

Karen let out a laugh so guttural that Frank jerked his head around wildly, afraid someone would notice. She almost thought to leave.

"Y'know Frank, if you felt like teasing me with nonsense, you could've just left a flaming bag of shit at my window instead."

"I'm serious," he said, raising his pitch. "Anvil. Military. Anything about them?"

"What is your point Frank?"

Frank was so wracked he jolted up off the bench and began to pace around in front of her, and Karen could tell perhaps Frank was serious. She could not yet bring her face up to look at him.

"This guy. He came lookin' for me. Askin' me about... 'bout a guy I knew from the Military. Billy Russo. Askin' what Russo's doin' runnin' a... military weapon farm and supplying the Japanese for."

"And what is Russo doing running a military weapon farm and supplying the Japanese?" Karen asked, cold and dry.

"Billy Russo's dead, Karen," Frank said. A shiver pierced through Karen's spine.  
"I watched him, die," Frank continued, leaning his hands onto the back of their bench. "His face was torn apart. That's why I gotta know, Karen." His voice was desperate. 

He approached the bench again, sitting and leaning his torso into her.

"I can't get involved with this, Frank," Karen whispered. "I shouldn't be here right now. You can't ask me to stay here for all this."

Karen spun around to him finally, taking in his new face wholly for the first time. A disguise was a disguise, but Frank looked nothing like himself, nothing like the shaped crew-cut she'd known, nothing like the bruised and bloody face. He was somewhat regular, like her.

"You look..." she began.

"I know..." he replied, his eyes fixed calmly. He sighed. "You don't have to help me, God knows I get you really shouldn't be." 

He looked straight out on to the open water.

"I got no one else, Karen."

There it was. The hidden answer that pulled Karen to the docks from the very beginning. The pull she felt to Frank Castle that she'd thought had been ripped apart with the slamming of the door.

She was what he had now, and in some facet he was hers as well.


End file.
